Innocent

Chapter 17: Taking Down Family

"You can get much further with a kind word and a gun then you can with a kind word alone" ~ Al Capone

I took my newspaper and began to read. The headline read: FBI Agents still missing civilian still unknown. I sighed with discontentment. I was waiting for a source for information. The park bench felt unnaturally normal. All this felt normal. Why didn't I like normal? I hated that. I'm out of prison. I should be on instagram posting selfies and going out and making friends and sneaking out at unreasonable hours to parties. Where I consume cheap beer in a red solo cup and meet a guy who has a cliche last name, like Smith. And that guy will be normal he wouldn't be a thief wanted in countries and he won't know how to pick a lock or hack into a world class security system, and he will work in a paper factory, because paper is normal and boring, and he will make an average salary that doesn't provide too many luxuries but just enough. We will have two kids, and a dog. One boy and one girl. Jane and John. And Jane and John will be average students, and every Tuesday as a family we go to John's soccer game, and once a month we go to Jane's ballet or piano recital. Every Friday will be family game night where we order pepperoni pizza and play monopoly.

The dog will be a golden retriever who can fetch, but won't know how to protect anyone because there will never be a need to protect anyone. I should want this. But I don't. I don't want normal, easy, simple. I want painful, devastating, life-changing, extraordinary.

I want a world class thief who will drink a hot chocolate as we do surveillance on the area we are about to steal. I want the thrill of zip-lining to a building using a belt and a rusty wire. I want running and laughing as we tell each other ridiculous stunts that we pulled. I want fake passports and diamonds. I want us to be the thieves who do the wrong thing for the right reasons. A reason we can't tell.

The thing I want most of all, more than the diamonds, and the passports, and the private jets is I want to stand in the sun, and sleep the way I did when I was a child, I want my innocence, I want everything that was taken from me, I want justice, not vengeance. I felt myself divide between a hotness and a coldness, a light and a dark.

I didn't know what was right anymore. Is stealing for the right reasons right, or is lying okay if you're serving a higher purpose? I was sitting on a park bench, in Central Park, my legs crossed as I clicked my right heel together, to a particular beat. The sun was beating down on me, giving me a warmth I hadn't experienced in too long. Despite my current predicament, my lips curled into a smile against my better judgement. God, I missed this. To sit in a park bench and bask in the sunlight and enjoy the green scenery around me. To look around without a schedule. I could sit here for hours. Tom purred in my lap, happy and content like I once was. Don't think about that. I continued to tap my right heel.

Tap.

Pause.

Tap.Tap.

Pause.

Tap.

Pause.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Pause.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar face wearing my favorite fedora. He took a seat right beside me.

"Lovely cat you have there. I never saw you as one to grow attachments, considering how heartless you were when I last saw you in Russia. Does he have a name?" He asked a look of amusement on his face.

"Raymond, is it just you here today? I'm surprised Dembe isn't here with you."

"Well, in case you are wondering I have what you need." I continued to stare down at my newspaper, but I raised my eyebrow listening.

"Sophia Cohen." He paused, "Have you heard of her?"

"I was living in prison, not under a rock. She's the president's daughter known for giving money to charities all around the world, a big saint." I replied indifferently but then I gave him a puzzling look.

He chuckled slightly, "Well, I think we both know that you weren't entirely living in prison. I heard about the warden by the way. Such a shame. The good always die too soon, don't they? Anyway, America's sweetheart has been up to more than just giving her tithe at church. Six weeks ago an organization called Associations of World Peace bought seventy underground warehouses across the world, the thing that seems suspicious is that they deny all claims to buying any warehouses, the leader of this organization, Sasha Alyosha, has never been seen in person, and no one knows what she looks like. You think this would raise suspicions, but Sophia is backing up Sasha constantly telling the press to back off and running the press meetings for her."

"Why would she do that?" I asked.

"If I am right, then they are the same person. I've had spent hours of my time hunting out who she is and Sophia Cohen's only connection is Sasha Alyosha."

"How does any of this relate to my problem?"

"The president's daughter was behind the car crash. She sent secret service agents to do her dirty work."

I scoffed, "None of this makes any sense. Why would she do that?"

"Because she works for your dead brother."